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This courageous critter is a hero of the rat race - awarded the animal world’s highest bravery award for sniffing out deadly landmines and explosives in Cambodia. Magawa, an African giant pouched rat, has made safe 141,000 square metres of heavily mined ground - equal to 20 football pitches - finding 39 landmines and 28 other explosives.
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Trained as a HeroRAT by Belgian charity APOPO, Magawa is the first rat to win a PDSA award for valour and the first non-canine to win the Gold Medal. He was formally presented with his tiny medal via a live link between Cambodia and the UK by PDSA boss Jan McLoughlin.
She said: “Magawa’s dedication, skill and bravery are an extraordinary example. Cambodia estimates that between four and six million landmines were laid between 1975 and 1998. "Every discovery he makes reduces the risk of injury or death for local people.”
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Britain previously funded a scheme to train giant rats to sniff out thousands of buried landmines in Mozambique. The initiative was part of a new £5million mine-clearing programme by the UK’s department for international development that lasted for three years.
